Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2060 Brings Ray Tracing to the Masses

By
Kevin Sebastian and TOM BRANTJan. 7, 2019, 11:48 a.m.

Unveiled at CES, the GeForce RTX 2060 is just $349, but includes many of the benefits of its more expensive siblings, including the ability to render richly detailed video games using both processing power and artificial intelligence algorithms.

LAS VEGAS — Nvidia's latest graphics card, the GeForce RTX 2060, can deliver higher resolutions and a more enjoyable gaming experience than previous GPUs thanks as much to artificial intelligence algorithms as a more powerful chip design.

The RTX 2060, unveiled at CES on Sunday, is the new "entry-level" card in the GeForce RTX lineup. (Nvidia will continue to sell lower-end cards in the existing GTX "Pascal" line.)

It will go on sale Jan. 15 for $349 (AED 1440 for the UAE and a similar price range reflecting the Middle East but assume that the cards will priced differently depending on the GPU market) an appealingly low price that marks the new entry point into the fledgling world of ray tracing in video games. The RTX 2060 should appear in a host of forms including stock-clocked and factory-overclocked models from Nvidia's card partners including ASUS, Colorful, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, MSI, Palit, PNY and Zotac. A stock-clocked RTX 2060 Founders Edition board designed and built by NVIDIA will also be available. The RTX 2060 will also be available in systems built by Acer, Alienware, Dell, HP and Lenovo, as well as by leading system builders worldwide.

RTX cards are based on a more advanced Turing architecture than their Pascal-based predecessors. Turing is powerful enough to display richly detailed video game scenes, including shadows and reflections that weren't possible just a year ago, using a software technique known as ray tracing.

One of the challenges of ray tracing for both Nvidia and game developers is that it places immense processing demands on the GPU, and as a result the previously existing RTX cards are extremely expensive. The top-of-the line RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition costs $1,199, while the cheapest RTX card previously available, the RTX 2070, is $599.

Achieving a Lower-Cost RTX

To get the price down to $349 for the RTX 2060, Nvidia had to make a few compromises. The most obvious is that it has 6GB of dedicated video memory, compared with 8GB or more for the other RTX cards. When it comes to ray tracing, the RTX 2060 can perform 5 gigarays per second, compared with 6 gigarays per second for the RTX 2070 and 10 gigarays per second for the RTX 2080 Ti.

AI algorithms take up the slack and help achieve this performance. Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) algorithms can virtually boost the resolution of a scene without having to dramatically increasing the processing demands involved, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at the RTX 2060's unveiling.

"We can use DLSS to infer a much more beautiful, higher resolution," Huang explained. The result is that for games that support both ray tracing and DLSS, the RTX 2060 will let its owners play them with ray tracing enabled at 60 frames per second.

Indeed, using a demo from Battlefield V during the unveiling event, the ray tracing effects (such as flames from off the screen reflecting in windows on screen) were immediately noticeable despite silky smooth frame rates. The problem is that not many games support both DLSS and ray tracing yet. Even Battlefield V has to be updated, which its developer Electronic Arts promised will happen soon. Other titles planning DLSS support include Anthem, Justice, and Atomic Heart.

Also, RTX Hits the Laptop

On the other hand, PCs equipped with RTX cards that can play them will be plentiful, since Nvidia also announced a new platform that will enable manufacturers to put them in laptops. NVIDIA RTX video processing capabilities should enable video editors to work with up to 6K RAW video in real time, and let broadcasters create high-quality streams to Twitch — all while on the go.

The mobile versions of the RTX card will show up in around 40 laptops this year, with around 17 of them supporting the power-efficient Max-Q design. Nvidia didn't offer many details about the differences between desktop and mobile versions of the RTX cards, but some laptops that include them have already been announced, such as the Alienware m17 and the Asus Zephyrus S. (Hit the links for our hands-ons with these machines, and expect more in the coming days.)

They will also be available from local OEMs and system builders, including Aftershock CyberPower PC, Hasee, Maingear, Mechrevo, Mouse, Origin PC, PC Specialist, Scan, Schenker, Terrans Force and Thunderobot.

An Expansion to G-Sync

Nvidia also announced an expansion of its G-Sync monitor specification at CES. G-Sync, which synchronizes the frame rate output of the video card and the display's refresh rate, helps reduced tearing and other annoying screen artifacts during gameplay.

Previously, a monitor had to ship with specially licensed G-Sync technology built in. With the expansion, Nvidia will certify already-existing monitors to enable some of G-Sync's features, such as refresh rate overclocking and synchronized variable frame rates. Nvidia said it has tested 400 existing monitors so far, and certified 12. It intends to test all of the 500-odd adaptive-sync-capable monitors on the market and certify any further models that meet its standards.

Battlefield V with DLSS Coming Soon

Electronic Arts and DICE will shortly release an update to Battlefield V that will incorporate DLSS support, as well as additional optimizations for real-time ray tracing. Pairing DLSS with ray tracing allows gamers to get both amazing performance and ray-traced image quality.

Testing with early builds shows that RTX performance with DLSS and ray tracing simultaneously enabled can provide comparable frame rates to playing with ray tracing disabled.

Bundle with Anthem, Battlefield V

For a limited time, gamers buying a qualifying GeForce RTX 2060, or a new desktop PC equipped with the RTX 2060, can choose to receive Anthem or Battlefield V. This bundle promotion is available in most regions around the world.

About the Author

Kevin Sebastian is a passionate writer who lives and breathes on the internet. He started out as a Reddit lurker and eventually made his way to editorial. His curiosity for the region's burgeoning tech scene lead him to editorial positions in various tech publications managing content in technology and gaming. While Kevin is not writing or ranting about the gaming or tech industry, you can find him in far off deserts trying to practice his astrophotography, or in the city making documentaries. See Full Bio